Human Connections
by Sam-Tony
Summary: Some connections you miss; some you need family, a spy, near death, and world espionage to make for you. Chance/Aaron, Guerrero.


Title: Human Connections

Author: Sam-Tony

Fandom: Human Target

Pairing: Christopher Chance/Aaron Cooper

Rating: FRM - slash, sex implied, voyeurism

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Disclaimer: Not mine, no money made.

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Summary: Some connections you miss; some you need family, a spy, near death, and world espionage to make for you.

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A/N: Set after with a general recap of Embassy Row.

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Human Connections

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It really had been about needing to know about his brother. At first. And to let Chance know he was grateful, for everything. Hallmark didn't really make a 'thanks for saving my life from a Russian spy wielding deadly poison' card, not even in this day and age.

So...he had let his need to understand more about Danny's life lead him to San Francisco and quite possibly the man who knew more about Danny than his own brother had. But seeing that tired smile that greeted him after Winston had announced he was there...

After the too-brief talk and the admonition to pick up the phone if Chance ever called, Aaron passed Winston on his way out...though he didn't exactly leave.

--

Meeting Chance for the first time as a possible intruder in his apartment, the baseball bat awkward in his hands, he really hadn't had the time or attention span to do more than think 'big' and 'threat'. This is, until he was quite easily disarmed and learned that the number Danny had given him was actually an unintentional cry for help and that his intruder was the one who had answered his message on the other end. By the time they had reached the hotel, he hadn't known _*what* _to think - except that there was obviously a reason Danny had trusted this Christopher Chance and that maybe he should, too. Between Danny's notes and the poison and getting into the Russian consulate, the man and his friends certainly seemed to know what they were doing.

Winston seemed like a nice enough guy; more ordinary than not. More like him, if not quite as out of his element as Aaron had felt all day. But then he hadn't inhaled an assassin's poison, felt his body fluctuate between extreme hot and cold, and then need a jolt of electricity to restart his heart.

As for Guerrero, he had been baiting Winston all day, when the older man spoke at all, and it hadn't taken Aaron long to realize that at least half of what he said was dropped just to poke the man. Mess with his mind, make the former cop twitch. Aaron had enjoyed it, even caught the wink of a blue eye behind those glasses at the other man's expense, and had relegated all future exchanges to the back of his mind as he poured over Danny's notes while Guerrero worked on the code. Whatever else the man was, like Chance, he was good with Danny's notes.

Trying to puzzle out the ones with what looked to be variations on chemical formulas, the blood that had dripped from his nose hadn't registered at first, his mind caught up in trying to figure out who this Raven actually was and how his ordinary, every-day brother who liked deep dish pizza and Wilma from Buck Rogers, had managed to track down and unmask a world-class Russian spy.

Then the world had gone sideways as the realization hit and two sets of eyes - one horrified, one calculating - had rested on him before Guerrero was out the door to find out how he had been exposed and Winston was back on the earpiece with Chance.

It had taken only a moment after the call had come that the poison had been airborne in his apartment to realize what that meant; Chance was infected, too. When Guerrero had returned with the defibrillator, giving him a look, other than a shiver of fear and a half-serious question about his expertise, Aaron had watched the other man flip through the instructions and let the now familiar teasing as well as the machines warning sirens clearly aimed to torment Winston (he hoped) roll over him along with the chills.

He barely remembered the seizures; of being unable to control his body as it shut down, the room spinning as he passed out only to wake lying flat on the coffee table, magazines bunched under him, his shirt open and tshirt pulled up, the defibrillator paddles and blue eyes fuzzy in his side vision.

Then Chance found out the identity of the spy and Guerrero had piled him into a black van before heading to Raven's hotel room to find the antidote and a blanket for him to wrap up in. The chills were back and he couldn't seem to get warm.

Though equally poisoned, Chance had managed to kill the spy and escape the Russian Consulate and its guards with Agent Barnes, the FBI agent Danny had contacted to meet him there, and make it over the wall where Winston and Guerrero had found him. Seeing Agent Barnes in the flesh, Aaron had an uncontrollable flash of jealousy at the beauty in the red dress before Chance's friends had cut the cuffs and half-carried him to the van, leaving her standing by the curb alone.

So he had also gotten a brief flash of satisfaction as Guerrero had jabbed the needle into Chance's leg. It hadn't been Wilma that Aaron had watched Buck Rogers for, and from the pointed look Guerrero had thrown Chance's way, Aaron was pretty sure he had figured it out. He certainly hadn't been that rough when giving _*him* _the antidote.

And then it was over. They left to go back to San Francisco (hence the three hour time lapse between his call of the number Danny had given him, and Chance's arrival at his apartment) and he stayed in Washington.

He had gone on to write the article Danny had wanted him to write, leaving out just about everything except the most basic of details and _*anything* _that might even remotely point to Chance and his group. Even then, it hadn't been too hard for agent Barnes to have found him; after all, she had seen his face if only briefly in the van, and he was the only reporter that had scooped the story way before the rest of the news media. Print and television. But Danny's story deserved to be told; his brother had deserved to have the world know what he had done, even if the world would never know anything about the true heroes. Not even their names.

He had come to San Francisco to let them all know that though he had written the article, he would keep their secret. He wasn't naive; no matter that he tried to take a baseball bat to the intruder in his apartment; no matter that he hadn't had a clue as to what his brother had actually done. Had actually been.

He had always thought Danny had worked as a non-profit lawyer for the Grovener Foundation, only to find out he was a spy - or, according to Chance, a spy _*hunter*._

Had Danny really worked counter intelligence for the foreign service? How little had he known his brother, really? Or had he even known him at all? Chance had said Danny couldn't afford to have connections; too much danger to the others involved. But where did that leave the family they left behind? The friends? Or lovers?

Maybe needing a connection to his brother wasn't the only thing that had drawn him across the country to San Francisco and the warehouse that housed the man who had saved his life. Chance thought that Danny had brought them together to finish what he had started; maybe even to save Aaron's life. Aaron thought Danny had brought them together for more even than that.

---

"I know you're out there." Chance called out as soon as he heard the door close after Winston. He had a pretty good idea of who it was going to be. "Might as well come out of hiding; that is, if you want to talk."

Sure enough Aaron edged slowly into view. "I'm not hiding."

"You sure? Last I knew, I didn't own a junior-Cooper-shaped floor lamp in my place."

Chance watched as a smile tugged at Aaron's lips. "Funny. Let me guess; it was the hair that gave me away?"

"Nah. The satchel does it every time." Chance told him, patting the couch beside him. "Sit. What's on your mind?"

There was a self-conscious smile as the kid sat and admitted, "Too much, really."

"I figured." He could well imagine the dozens if not hundreds of questions the kid might have. "Still have questions about your brother?"

Though Aaron seemed a bit surprised by the question as he refuted, "About Danny? No. Well, yes, but..."

And suddenly all of Guerrero's glares and that jab with the needle made a bit more sense. "Not just about Danny, is that it?"

Aaron seized on that gratefully, sighing. "Yes!" Shifting forward, elbows on his knees, he looked him in the eye honestly and asked, "How do you do it? Day after day, thwarting spies and FBI agents and I honestly have no idea what else?"

Chance shrugged, needing the space to figure out what he was going to do about the attraction now that he knew about it. Not that it was entirely one sided, not at all, but entanglements with clients were never a good thing. Despite what Guerrero might think he needed...

He had learned that lesson the hard way, with Katherine.

He shied away from the memory with an effort, saying only, "It takes practice. I didn't just fall into this life - well, okay, so I did - but it takes years to learn how to read the players, hammer out workable plans, cover all contingencies..."

"To deal with the loneliness?" Aaron guessed softly, blue eyes way too knowing looking up at him from the kid's lean.

"That, too," Chance found himself admitting. An inner sigh as his resistance wavered and crashed, he accused with a small smile, "You didn't really watch Buck Rogers for the girl in the jumpsuit, did you?"

He watched the choices and decisions flit across the kid's face, his eyes not quite meeting his before making that same leap.

"No. No, not really."

"Ah." Chance followed up with a shrewd guess, "Buck?"

This time the grin was wry as Aaron admitted, "Hawk, actually. I think it was all that leather. Or maybe the feathers..."

He laughed as Chance pulled him in for a kiss, raising his eyebrows as he opined, "Kinky."

Then their lips met and Chance deciding teasing Aaron wasn't nearly as much fun as kissing him.

--

Hours later, leaning back against the broad chest and wrapped in Chance's arms, Aaron let his fingers brush light trails against the bare arm holding him while his brain hummed in lazy satisfaction. Sated, exhausted, and otherwise pleasantly achy in all the right places, he couldn't help but think about Danny, and why his brother had left him in the dark all those years, all the while already making plans to check around for a transfer to the Bay.

Behind him Chance stirred, his lips soft against the back of his neck, breath warm as it tickled his ear as he sighed, "Aaron..."

"You can't have this," he guessed. "Can you?"

He waited as the seconds passed in silence, already knowing the answer. Chance had already told him, when describing Danny's sacrifices to the job. No commitments, no connections, no distractions. No attachments.

But where did that leave Winston? Or Guerrero? Where did that leave him?

"No. I can't."

Aaron nodded, even as his mind was already lining up arguments to support the many reasons why he _*should*. _He was a journalist, a writer...

If anyone was well-versed in the art of persuasion and the many ways to win an argument, it was Aaron Cooper. And he had every reason in the world to win this one.

--

Epilog...

Guerrero stared at the image on his laptop, firmly ignoring the pang of longing that hit him at the two men curled together on the couch; the perfect image of sated afterglow wrapped in the light sheet taken from a convenient pile of clean laundry. That little camera tucked in the brace of two industrial beams had a great signal. He had been a little afraid that being surrounded by all that metal would have broken down the clarity, but the picture was clear as a bell.

A little too clear, actually, but just because he was having a bit of an unexpected reaction to Chance and Aaron's hook up didn't mean he should fiddle with the feed. He could control his hormones, the important thing was that he was able to keep an eye on Chance's place...just in case.

Throwing the headphones onto the desk, he left the screen up, unable to listen in on the cuddle-talk - or what passed as Chance's self-sacrificing version of cuddle-talk - but not willing to shut it down. Not yet. He had nudged, just slightly, the pair in just this direction, and he was glad he hadn't read the kid wrong.

If anyone needed an occasional shoulder to lean on it was Chance; if he was any judge of character - and he wouldn't be any good at his job if he wasn't - then Aaron was just the guy to give it to him.

He'd gotten a good feel for the kid while walking through his apartment after watching how he had reacted to having his world turned upside down by an international spy who had killed his brother. He questioned but didn't panic, was willing to trust friends of Chance's just because he was a friend of his brother's, and his brother had trusted Chance. He knew he was in over his head and was willing to give the situation over into better hands. It was probably what made the kid a solid, if not a good, reporter - you couldn't be a good reporter unless you were ambitious, especially in DC, and he hadn't gotten that ruthless vibe from the kid at all.

But he was wasn't a doormat. Taking a baseball bat to an intruder in his apartment took guts, if not actual brains; brains would have backed off and called the cops. But his brother had just been murdered, so...tough call.

And maybe most important, the kid was observant. Caught on real quick to the fact he was picking at Winston when even the man himself only figured Guerrero was plucking his nerves. Aaron saw that and more, he saw the distraction behind the teasing, even caught him in the act a couple of times, prompting him to offer the kid a wink in return. That was why he tormented Winston so much about the defibrillator; it distracted Winston and Aaron both from the fact that they may actually need the damned thing. And they had.

His heart almost stopped when he heard Winston's shout and walked in to find the kid unconscious and thrown flat on the coffee table. No good to let Winston know how out of his league he actually was - like he said, he _*put* _people in that situation, getting Aaron out of it was a little different. But he had already seen the attraction between the kid and Chance, and to lose one, knowing the other was in the same danger...he had needed the distraction baiting the former cop presented.

Tossing Raven's room, getting the antidote, dosing Aaron and then getting to Chance had been something he could do, though finding Chance already over the Russian Embassy wall had been a pleasant surprise. At least he wouldn't have to go in and get him. Taking down a few Russian agents on their home 'soil' might be a fun way to burn off some tension, but a waste of valuable time.

A quick jab of the needle into Chance's leg and glance at the woman literally on his arm brought a growl, though he managed to turn it into a leer and a comment on her dress while digging into his bag for the clippers to cut the handcuff chain locking them together. He and Winston half-carried Chance to the body of the van with Aaron waiting huddled in a blanket inside. Piling in behind him, he had braced a leg between Chance and her - strictly to lean out and pull the door shut, of course - tossing a grin and a 'see ya' as they pulled away.

Only the fact that Chance had shifted over to huddle next to Aaron kept him from drilling the man a new one.

One last look at the couple now dozing on the screen, he minimized the program and got to work figuring out just what Miss Agent Barnes and the FBI had, or thought they had, on Aaron Cooper and Christopher Chance. Drugged, intentional slip, or whatever, Chance had left a print and that was one more connection in the hands of the Feds. Not what they needed. Not at all.

The image of their sweaty trist still burning behind his eyelids, he debated rather he should take care of his not so little problem first before digging around in cyberspace...

...before pushing up from the chair and heading to the bathroom.

After all, he may be a self-appointed guardian angel, didn't mean he was a saint, dude.

End


End file.
